Ghost
by aconsultingwizard
Summary: What it is to be a ghost, to feel the loneliness and isolation and to be forgotten about. Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assihnments) DADA (2.2)
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments) Defense Against The Dark Arts (Assignment 2)

Prompt: Write about someone's death. Extra Credit: Write about them returning to walk on the Earth.

Word Count: 750 (ish)

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><p>Some people stay behind because they are afraid. Others stay because they cannot bear to leave those who they love. Some believe there is nothing waiting for them in the next world.<p>

None are prepared for the absolutely loneliness of their decision. No one is ready to watch their life fade away as those around them carry on. It is unbearable to watch those you loved slowly grow old, to die and to watch their souls travel on their natural path, leaving you trapped behind.

Eventually, there is nothing left that you care about. But you have to carry on, because there is no other choice. A ghost cannot die, does not need to sleep or eat.

It is a meaningless existence. There is no hope, no possible conclusion. Slowly, ever so slowly, as you lose any sense of what it is to be alive, you fade. No longer visible even as a ghost, you simply disappear. The world becomes muted and you become isolated, alone forever.

I am fading now. Soon, I will be nothing more than a whisp of consciousness, a whisper in the wind, a glimpse in the sunlight. None shall know of me and I will be forgotten.

I was seventeen when I died. It was an accident, a stupid accident, but not even my magic could save me from the car that came rushing down the drive and hit me as I was walking home. If I hadn't dawled at the cornerstore to flirt with Nancy, if my father hadn't had too much to drink that night, then maybe I would have been saved. I can still see the headlights, still hear the screech of the tyres and the honk of his horn. All of it too late. I died almost instantly, but the pain I felt in the few seconds before my soul left my body has haunted me since then.

I went to the funeral. My football team came, and I saw Matthew cry, the sissy. My family was all there, and Nancy, looking suitably upset. I watched them seal my body up in the coffin and I watched them lower it, me, into the hole. I watched as they poured dirt over the top.

I shouted and I hit them but nothing made a difference. My fists went through them and they never noticed me. It was like I was trapped in a sound proof box.

Now I know that ghosts don't form instantly, that sometimes the body doesn't totally relinquish its hold on the soul for a few days and during that time no one can see you. Now it's too late though. I fled my home, just kept moving, but I had nowhere to run to.

For twenty years I haven't spoken to anyone. I have had no contact with my family, friends, or strangers. I am stuck, seventeen forever, a hermit, forgotten by the world. I look the same as I did the day I died, a translucent version of myself. My hoodie permanently stained with blood, the open wounds that will last forever.

I look seventeen, but I am far older than that. Death ages you, lets you see things no one should see. Death stole my life and my youth but it left me. I am a paradox, a puzzle that makes no sense, for who can make sense of a ghost?

Soon I will go. I will leave this wasteland, this Earth that you have destroyed and I will finally be free. I don't know what will happen, where I will go, but oblivion will claim me, and I will be nothing.

That moment is always in my mind. That moment where I chose to stay. I don't know why I stayed, perhaps I thought they would fix me, that if I stayed I would be healed. Maybe it was just too unfair, I was too young. No one I knew had died, I would be alone. I didn't realise the curse I chose, this permanent loneliness. I was blind to the path I had chosen.

I ask of you only one thing. Remember me. However fleetingly, remember me as I am now. You don't know me, but I have shown you everything that I am.

I am John Smith. I am nobody, and soon I will become nothingness.


	2. Chapter 2

[Extra Credit: Monologue from the POV of someone who was in the original story]

Word Count: 500 (ish)

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><p>Today I went to my son's funeral. I cried as they buried him, prayed for his soul, accepted the pitying looks from neighbours and relatives.<p>

I killed him.

It was my recklessness, my stupidity.

My wife hid my guilt. She used her magic, did something to the police who came asking for me, made them forget what happened. She cleaned my clothes with a swish of her wand but she couldn't save our son's life. She always hated the car, doesn't understand why I use it. So many things she doesn't understand, _muggle _things.

She's leaving. She says she can't live in this world, this bleak ordinary world. She won't take the children-they don't have magic, they're not good enough for her. He was the only one born with magic. He was like her. She wanted to send him away, send him to some posh school. Now he's gone, she has no reason to stay. That's why I can't confess. If I turned myself in, who would look after the children?

I couldn't stop. I tried to stop. The second I saw him I hit the breaks but everybody knows that alcohol slows your reflexes. I felt the thud, saw him fall. Over the sound of the horn and the breaks I heard his scream.

Today, at the funeral, I thought I saw him. The doctor says it must have been a hallucination, but it was real. I swear it was real. He was just sort of floating. He looked almost peaceful, the sun shining through the great glass windows behind him. He looked, _angelic._ I'm not a religious man, but I know that wherever I go when I die, it won't be to where he is. My twisted, tortured soul is going straight to hell.

The funeral was awful. His girlfriend was there, crying and blaming herself for what happened. Poor little Nancy, thinking it was her fault because she held him up at the store. Not knowing that the man she confessed to was the true murderer. The football boys, his best friend, all trying to hold back tears. They will get to grow up, graduate, get married, have their own families. I stole all of that from my son.

I am a haunted man. I am guilty of murder, of killing an innocent child, _my child._ I stole his life from him, his future, his happiness. My house is one of misery, and every time someone looks at me with pity in their eyes I want to scream. Can't they see it? Can't they see that I'm a murderer. My son deserves their pity, I deserve their hatred.

For the rest of my life, only one thing matters. Only one thing is important to me, one secret, buried so deep that no one will ever know, is what my life now revolves around.

I killed my son.


End file.
